Speed was the major driving consideration as most new capital ships, particularly the battlecruisers, were projected to feature speeds over 30 knots. Almost none of the existing Japanese destroyer designs was up to the task. By the time the Washington Naval Disarmament Conference of 1922 convened, three new, capable classes of destroyer had been completed for the IJN, each an incremental improvement over the proceeding class. The Mutsuki class of twelve ships was the last of these classes. 

Design
Up through mid-World War 1, Japanese destroyer development had been closely linked to Royal Navy practices. As that war progressed, attention was also paid to German destroyer design. As a result, the initial class of new IJN destroyers, the Minekazes, incorporated a number of new features first seen in the German designs, including a lengthened, turtle-backed forecastle and the main armament set high on the centerline.

In the new class, four single 12cm/4.7inch gun mounts comprised the main armament, along with three sets of twin 53cm/21inch torpedo tubes. One torpedo mount was set behind the forecastle in a well deck in front of the bridge, the other two placed further aft of the funnels. More powerful, turbine driven engines for higher speed were installed, which also enabled greater range. When completed, the new Minekazes were considered the equal of foreign contemporary destroyers. 

The second class of new destroyers, the Kamikazes, tweaked the original design with a strengthened bridge structure and a wider bean for greater stability. Some re-arrangement of the deckhouse and main armament occurred as well in the last few units. There were subtle tweaks to the main armament shielding as well.

The Mutsukis, the last class of new destroyers, were tweaked yet again. A new bow form, referred to as a double spooned bow, was incorporated, along with more flare to help with seakeeping. Beam and draft were again slightly enlarged, better to accommodate a new, heavier torpedo armament.

For the first time in a Japanese ship, 61cm/24” torpedoes were installed, in two new triple tube mounts. Reloads for six torpedoes were also provided for. More depth charges were added to the stern. Some ships were equipped with minelaying rails, while others were equipped with minesweeping paravanes. Engine machinery remained the same as the proceeding class with 38,500shp and a top speed of just over 37 knots. Range remained the same, that of 3,600nm at 14 knots.

All class members underwent reconstruction between 1935 and 1937 as a result of issues with structural weaknesses exhibited by some vessels during damaging encounters with typhoons. The hull and bridge were reinforced, and the bridge reduced in width, made more aerodynamic, and given a steel roof. An RDF loop and compartment were added aft. The funnel tops were raked back and the torpedo tube mounts were enclosed by a weather and splinter proof shield. A twin 13mm AA mount aft of number two funnel was added to most units as well. Overall displacement increased, and top speed was reduced to 32.5 knots. A degaussing cable was added to the outside of the hull just prior to the beginning of hostilities in 1941. 

Eventually, new destroyer designs beginning with the succeeding Fubuki type rendered the Minekaze and Kamikaze classes obsolete by the mid-1930s. Most of these ships were subsequently assigned secondary duties. The enlarged and improved torpedo batteries of the Mutsukis were seen as an asset, and these ships were retained as first line ships at the outset of the Pacific war. 

Brief History
Mutsuki (?? January Moon) was laid down at the Sasebo Naval Dockyard as Destroyer #19 on May, 21, 1924. She was launched on July 23, 1925 and completed on March 25, 1926. After commissioning, she became flagship of the 30th Destroyer Division. She was renamed Mutsuki in 1928. 

Mutsuki was heavily damaged in the 4th Fleet Incident of Sept, 1935, when she and many other ships encountered a severe typhoon. Her bridge face was completely smashed, her captain killed, and the ship lost steering. Thankfully, emergency steering was quickly restored and the ship saved. She subsequently underwent reconstruction and modernization. Afterwards, Mutsuki and DesDiv 30 participated in numerous landings and provided fire support during various operations in Chinese coastal waters in the late 1930s.

She was active from the outset of the Pacific war, participating in the invasions of Wake Island, the Solomon Islands, Rabaul, New Ireland, New Britain, Lae, Salamua, and the Shortland Islands; all by the end of April, 1942. Sprinkled among the invasions was a number of convoy escort missions in conjunction with her division. Of note was a brief period of maintenance at Truk, where she had a small sponson added forward of her bridge and a twin 13mm mount added on the starboard side.

In May, she and DesDiv 30 escorted the troop convoy tasked with the invasion of Port Moresby as part of Operation MO. However, the concurrent Battle of the Coral Sea stymied that intent. The invasion was postponed after the clash, as the withdrawal of the IJN’s carrier force eliminated air cover for the invasion force. Without air cover, the convoy was now clearly vulnerable to enemy air attack and ordered to return to base at Rabaul.

Afterwards, there was a lull in activity, save for some new escort missions. Eventually, in late June, Mutsuki escorted a ship loaded with a construction battaMutsuki to Tulagi in the Solomon Islands, across from Guadalcanal, in order to begin construction of an airfield. She then reported to Sasebo Naval Base in mid-July for a refit and maintenance, which was completed by mid-August. While there, the division was re-assigned to Eighth Fleet, newly created to support operations around Guadalcanal and New Guinea.

After completion of the refit, Mutsuki and DesDiv 30 joined those forces at Rabaul and the Shortland Islands. In early August, US forces had invaded Guadalcanal, and 8th Fleet became the focus of Japanese naval efforts to dislodge the Americans. On the evening of August 24th, Mutsuki joined division-mate Yayoi and three other destroyers in bombarding the newly established, American-held airfield known as Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. This happened to be one of the initial actions that were part of what became known as the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Elsewhere, opposing forces had engaged this same day in a series of damaging carrier actions, with both sides subsequently withdrawing their carrier forces from the scene. 

On the following morning of the 25th, Mutsuki and her bombardment companions were made part of a large cruiser and destroyer escort to a small troop reinforcement convoy commanded by Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka. The convoy itself was composed of three transports and several patrol boats, all carrying men to be landed on Guadalcanal. However, the bombardment of Henderson Field by Mutsuki and her consorts the night before had been mostly ineffective, leaving American air power based on the field mostly intact. Several of those aircraft subsequently attacked the convoy and its escorts during mid-morning, damaging both the convoy flagship, CL Jintsu, and one of the transports. Mutsuki pulled alongside the damaged transport Kinryu Maru to take off her crew and embarked troops.

It was then that four US Army Air Force B-17s from Espiritu Santo arrived overhead and proceeded to make a bomb run over the two motionless ships. Mutsuki’s captain elected to keep his ship alongside Kinryu Maru to continue the evacuation. Several bombs hit on or around the ships, with at least one direct hit in Mutsuki’s engineering spaces. She quickly sank, with 41 dead (including the captain) and 11 injured. Division sister Yayoi took off her survivors as well as those of Kinryu Maru. After scuttling the transport with a torpedo, Yayoi took the survivors back to base in the Shortland Islands.

Triumph’s new Mutsuki kit is actually not the first 1/350 version of the class on the market. A.B.&K Models, a Ukrainian company mostly known for supplying some aircraft and aircraft accessories, released their own resin version in August 2024. I don’t know much about it, other than it was prohibitively expensive and in very limited supply. The beauty shots I saw on Hobby Search Japan showed a decent kit, but more than that I could not say other than it’s almost impossible to find one on the market.

Triumph Models is a Chinese model manufacturer that’s been around for several years now, focusing on various scales of armor, figures, and 1/700 resin ships. They’ve also been producing ship accessories in 1/350 scale utilizing 3D printing. Now, Triumph has chosen Mutsuki as their first full ship kit to be released in 1/350 scale. 

Note that this kit is offered in one of four configurations: Full hull or waterline, standard or deluxe. The standard versions contain a resin hull and 3D printed parts. The deluxe versions offer the same, plus a comprehensive set of photoetch and a deck mask. This review kit happens to be the full hull, deluxe kit. 

The kit hull is cast a very light grey resin. Everything else is either a 3D printed part, or photoetch, or turned brass. There are twenty-four print rafts; numerous smaller parts are contained on thirteen rafts printed in black while eleven larger rafts containing superstructural or weapons related items printed in orange.

The kit art and contents mark this as Mutsuki, late 1941. However, right out of the box, this kit could be built as any of the first eight sisters (those with mine rails at the stern) after modernization. The fit is typical of this class immediately prior to the outset of the war through mid-1942 for most of those eight sisters. Some of Triumph’s marketing beauty shots show some plated over portholes, but that would not be correct for an early war fit. 

On the other hand, the hull is not issue-free. Most glaring is that this particular hull came noticeably bowed. (see photo with the hull posed against a straight edge ruler).  Admittedly, I have not contacted Triumph about a replacement, so I do not know how responsive Triumph might prove to be in a case like this. Hopefully, this is an exception and not the rule. There’s no twist or bend in the hull, so it’s likely that a hot water bath treatment will be sufficient to straighten the hull. 

The other concern is overstated plating. It’s undeniably over-scale and a comparison of the kit hull with a photo of Mutsuki lays this out clearly. The kit plating throws noticeable shadows around it, whereas any shadow cast by the real thing was minimal and only evident with overhead light. 

These days, there seems to be a trend in ship kits at maximizing detail as a means of expressing quality, even if it’s overstated.  There will be many who won’t be bothered by this at all, but for an admitted rivet counter like me, it’s clearly overdone.  It’s possible that a coat of paint might diminish the effect, and it will certainly be less evident for those who purchase a waterline hull. 

The kit hull dimensions scale out reasonably well. Mutsuki’s particulars versus the scale and kit:

                                    Actual                          1/350 calculated                     1/350 actual

Overall Length:           102.72m/337’              293.49mm                               289.0mm*

Waterline Length:        100.2m/328’7”             286.29mm                               286.0 mm

Beam:                          9.16m/30’1”                26.17mm                                  25.5mm

*A straightened hull would likely add 0.5+mm of length. 

·Funnels #1 & 2 – both have funnel grills, handrails, and auxiliary piping. Funnel #2 has the extra tall piping from the galleys. 

·Bridge – printed complete except for the roof (which is printed separately in black). Don’t forget to add the instrumentation to the bridge interior before gluing the roof on. 

·Deckhouse A with #2 main battery mount bandstand 

·Deckhouse B with RDF compartment, RDF antenna tripod and loop, bandstands for 60cm searchlight and twin 13mm AA mount 

·Deck house C with #s 3 and 4 main battery mount bandstand 

·Four main 10cm battery mounts without barrels

·Four torpedo mount shields – two extra shields (!) plus riveted surfaces

·Three torpedo tube mounts with triple Type 90 61cm torpedoes – one extra mount 

·Three torpedo reload storage bays – each has a specific location

·Air & cowl intakes, smokescreen dispensers 

·Depth charge 

·K guns, hawser reel centers, assorted deck equipment 

·Boat davits, port forward torpedo reload girders, possibly unused racks 

·Ship’s boats (two 6m cutters and on 6m motor launch) 

·Bollards, bitts, fairleads, depth charge racks, deck hatches, etc. 

·Handwheels, 12cm binoculars, voice tubes, handling davits, cannisters, etc. 

·Anchors, capstan, 60cm searchlight, maneuvering light, winches, boxes, etc. 

·Main battery shields, 2m rangefinder, compass bridge deck roof 

·Mine rails, main battery bandstand supports, access ladders 

·Anchors, rudder, props, prop shaft brackets 

·Twin 35mm AA, 7.5mm MG 

Fret A contains all the railings for the ship, the rails for the torpedo trolley cart, two sets of mine rails/channels for the stern, access ladders for the bridge, jackstaffs, bridge mounted lookout stations, ladders for the masts, and few other small parts. 

Fret B holds numerous parts for a degaussing cable, brass alternative version of the bandstand support trusses, an RDF antenna and tripod, fans for the smoke screen dispensers, and three strips that I cannot identify. 

Fret C holds numerous doors, hatches, porthole rims with eyebrows, and covers for sealing portholes. The covers would not be used on a ship in early war fit but would be applicable to a late war version. 

There are two smaller frets as well. One carries brass yard arms and pulley shapes for those yardarms. 

The other contains a sponson extension for the starboard side of Mutsuki’s bridge. It was added at Truk in January, 1942 to accommodate a twin 13mm AA mounting. The instructions cite August, 1942, as the date of addition but that’s incorrect. It added a slight asymmetrical dimension to the front of the bridge and was present when Mutsuki sank that August. 

The images of the print rafts on the parts manifest do not show numbers or letters, nor are there corresponding markings on the actual rafts. I bring this up because the instructions below mark them as such, even though it’s not so. The modeler will have to eyeball the 3D printed parts carefully against the instructions. On the other hand, the instructions do suggest that each individual (black) part has a matching number/location embossed on its respective print raft and this appears to be true, but the numbers are small and difficult to see in black with a black background.

The bottom of the front sheet displays 3-point perspective images of the standard kit, depicting placement of all the various printed pieces in one color against the gray hull, along with the construction of the turned brass masts. The back of the sheet focuses on the deluxe kit, utilizing the same images from the standard kit and pieces, and then layering on the photoetch aspects using photoetch imagery in a different color.

Also included on the back is a color plate with the ship’s color scheme as of December 1941. Colors are keyed to three different paint suppliers: GSI, AquaQ and Tamiya, but there is no direct linking of a paint color with a specific ship color. The modeler is left to match colors via the Mk. 1 eyeball. 

It’s not flawless, given the overscale plating (and, for this particular sample, the bowed hull) but overall, I find it extremely well-executed with sharply defined parts of proper shape and dimensions. While fit has yet to be determined, construction does appear to be straightforward. And for those interested in some variability, it wouldn’t take much to create a late war version. Or even the early war, minesweeping fit version.

Also attractive is the flexibility of options in the choice of detail level and full hull vs. waterline. Pricing is a bit more expensive compared to styrene injection destroyers, but these new Triumph kits are the only 1/350 Mutsuki class options currently available. Price hasn’t apparently stifled demand, as the initial production run seems to have been exhausted at most online sources. I would assume additional production runs to be available in the near future.

I can certainly recommend this kit, and for those not overly concerned with the overscale hull plating, it can be highly recommended. 

This kit came courtesy of Triumph Models. I don’t see this kit currently offered for sale by US distributors, but the cost at Hobbylink Japan was approximately US$105, plus shipping and tariffs. Pricing was cheaper from online sites in Hong Kong, but this does not account for shipping or tariffs.